50 Reasons to Journey
by Liem
Summary: [slight slash] Sentences written for the 1sentence community on LJ. The story of Orpheus and Eurydice: their love, his secret, her death, and the journey to the land of the dead.


**Fandom: **Greek Mythology (Orpheus)  
**Pairing: **Orpheus/Eurydice (a bit of one-sided Orpheus/Aristeus)  
**Theme set: **Delta  
**Rating: **G to soft R

**Notes/Warning: **Based on Bernard Evslin, Dorothy Evslin, and Ned Hoopes's version of "Orpheus" in _The Greek Gods_, although I took some liberties with the myth for slash, of a one-sided kind, if only for a few sentences. Don't like, don't read.

**#1—Air **

He plays his lyre, and the air fills with the music—haunting, catching at hearts.

**#2—Apples**

Often, he finds gifts at his feet: coins, woven goods, and once, apples.

**#3—Beginning **

Her face begins to appear in his audience; soon, she becomes a constant.

**#4—Bugs**

She is always there, never mind the weather, the surroundings, or even the bugs that creep along the ground she sits on.

**#5—Coffee**

It is strange, he doesn't know why, but her presence always stimulates him to play better, to pour more power, more passion into his music.

**#6—Dark**

The notes thrum, strike out into the darkness, pull everyone—pull her—in.

**#7—Despair**

It is only one time, but her absence drags at his fingers as they sweep across the lyre; a catch, a hitch that conveys sorrow—despair.

**#8—Doors**

He steps up to take the open opportunity; his fingers tangle with hers and hold her back.

**#9—Drink**

He drinks in the sound of her voice as she breathlessly gushes of her love.

**#10—Duty**

They marry, and they both decide that from now on their only duty is to each other.

**#11—Earth**

She starts a garden behind their cottage, and he watches as she plants the seeds, dormant life thrust into the nurturing earth.

**#12—End**

He never wants this to end, but something (call it a premonition) tells him it will, and much too soon.

**#13—Fall**

He doesn't know if he can ever bear to watch it fall apart.

**#14—Fire**

For such a gentle person, her very look sets him on fire, makes him ache to hear her moan beneath his skillful fingers.

**#15—Flexible**

And skillful they are, those fingers, flexible enough to draw out the sweet notes of songs and the sweeter crescendo of her cries.

**#16—Flying**

Why would he ever want to fly into the sky when he is in Heaven already, with her by his side?

**#17—Food**

Shyly, she tells him that it was she who left him those apples.

**#18—Foot **

She is afraid that he does not love her back; doesn't she know that he worships her?

**#19—Grave**

Looking at her fresh, youthful face, he cannot believe that she could be destined for an early grave.

**#20—Green**

She claps her hands in delight when the first shoots thrust up, vibrantly green against the dark earth.

**#21—Head**

He likes the feel of her head leaning on his shoulder: a firm, comforting weight.

**#22—Hollow**

It upsets her, terribly, that she cannot bear any children for him.

**#23—Honor**

He is not bothered; he does not need children to prove his virility and certainly, he hopes, to validate their love.

**#25—Light**

She can be so light and carefree, a gentle wind that can never fully dispel his fears.

**#26—Lost**

Because lodged in the back of his mind is the memory, purposefully lost:

**#27—Metal**

Blood, metallic and tangy, as he bites his lips to stop the moans.

**#28—New**

It is new to him, lying with a man; he never imagined it to be so painful.

**#29—Old**

For Aristeus, it is familiar but never old, especially with Orpheus, slender body bucking beneath his own.

**#30—Peace**

Orpheus, with his soaring, beautiful voice, said to bring peace to those who hear it; but it only makes Aristeus's blood boil restlessly.

**#31—Poison**

Orpheus tries to forget, but Aristeus will not; the bard is a poison he willingly swallows.

**#32—Pretty**

Eurydice is extremely pretty; Orpheus thinks so with love, Aristeus with envy.

**#33—Rain**

The rain comes pounding down, and Eurydice cries as it thrashes the tender shoots until they crumple.

**#34—Regret**

He tries to comfort her; he, too, regrets the violent crushing of life—of promise.

**#35—Roses**

Perhaps she should plant roses, those beautiful flowers, he suggests; and then he thinks of the thorns that might prick her loving hands as she tends them.

**#36—Secret**

His loving Eurydice, who declares his voice and his music to be magnificently beautiful, is destroyed by _that_ secret.

**#37—Snakes**

Aristeus never meant for her to run into that nest of snakes; they were not what was on his mind as he chased her.

**#38—Snow**

Her skin becomes pale as snow while the poison leeches her life.

**#39—Solid **

Aristeus stares at her fallen body, then hides and waits for Orpheus.

**#40—Spring**

He comes and sees her corpse lying among the newly sprung grass.

**#41—Stable**

And everything shatters; Aristeus, sifting through the fragments, cannot find what he seeks—there is nothing (there was never) anything here for him.

**#42—Strange**

Orpheus could not imagine Eurydice so still, so gone; even with her corpse at his feet, he still cannot.

**#43—Summer**

How could something so fleeting—a flare of passion—destroy something so much more rooted, deep-running?

**#44—Taboo**

He needs to bring her back, even if it has never been done, even if it is forbidden.

**#45—Ugly **

The Underworld is an ugly place; Eurydice does not belong there.

**#46—War**

Victims of war, victims of murder—none have ever been allowed to come back, Hades tells him; why should she be any different?

**#47—Water**

Because, he pleads in liquid notes, in song, because I love her; the tears in Persephone's eyes compel Hades.

**#48—Welcome**

He cannot wait to welcome her back into his arms; and why should he delay it?

**#49—Winter**

She dissolves before his eyes: "gone," "forever," "barren," are the words that spring into his poet's mind.

**#50—Wood**

He sings to the woods alone, now.

**A/n: **I didn't know much about Aristeus until after I wrote this. I mean, it was vaguely hinted at that he tried to violate Eurydice, but I didn't know for sure until I looked it up. So obviously it was a bit of an…artistic liberty, to pair him up with Orpheus. Obviously, it is proof that I am more or less taken over by slash.


End file.
